Is Jesus the Way or a Way?

And this week, we have this frequently asked question, "Is Jesus the way or a way?" A couple things I want to say right up front. I'm well aware that this is a touchy, sensitive subject, and I want to be totally clear. Please listen to me. You do not have to agree with our specific answers to these questions to be welcome at this church. The Bible touches on a number of thorny questions, and we're not Christians because we have all the answers. We are Christians because we really love Jesus, and we are exploring how the Bible answers these questions as best we can together. That make sense? It's very important. I want you to know where I'm coming from.

In fact, here's something that John Orberg wrote that really expresses my heart this morning when he was preaching on this very same subject. He said, "I want to start just by way of confession to say that religious or spiritual arrogance, intolerance, contempt for the other has been rife in our day and is an enormous problem in our world. Too often people charged to lead religious or spiritual communities have not named it or spoken clearly enough against it, and it is awful and tragic. I will go further and speak of Christianity. To be truthful, some of the most arrogant, smug, judgmental, exclusive, self-righteous, superior, cranky attitudes I have ever seen have been in Christians. Do you know how I can say that? Because I know a lot of Christians, because I am one, and all that stuff is in me." Well, it's in me too. So we want to have this conversation today in a spirit of repentance, humility, and love. Amen? Amen.

Now, grab your notes if you haven't already and open your Bibles to John 14. John 14 begins on page 763 of those brown TLC Bibles. And in John 14, verse 6, Jesus makes one of the most controversial statements in the entire Bible, and here it is. Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." Perhaps the most controversial thing that Jesus ever said, at least for people living in our day and age, because let's face it, this sounds incredibly narrow. Lies in the face of our culture where all beliefs are considered to be equally valid, right?

In fact, right there at the top of your notes, there's a box. A couple of statements that I think express where our culture is coming from, some commonly held opinions, like, "It's arrogant to assume your religion is true and others aren't." Why can't Jesus just say that they're all true, at least all true on, you know, their own terms? You know, when my son Jack was, I don't know, seven years old, he made a statement to a kid in our neighborhood right there on our front porch about God, and I can't even remember what the nature of the statement was, but I'll never forget this neighbor kid turns right back to him and says, "Well, that's your truth." And he was like, "All six years old." And he's like, "You got your truth? I got mine."

Or how about this next statement, "Religion breeds intolerance, and often it does." Like, if you were to ask people 40 years ago, "What's the major barrier to peace in our world?" My guess is that most of them would answer political ideology, right? The age of communism versus democracy. Remember the years of the Cold War? This was a huge concern. But today, you'll get a different answer, because more and more people believe the barrier to peace is religion, religious ideology that breeds intolerance, violence, war. So one of the ways of coping with this, I think, is just to say enough. You know, can't we all just get along? Can't we just coexist, like the popular bumper sticker says? And you know, we want to find as much common ground as we can.

And so for some, the conclusion to it is just, well, you know, all major religions basically teach the same thing. Now, I'm no expert in world religions, but I know enough to say this is simply not the case. Just between the main world religions, there are enormous differences. For instance, Jack Maguire is a leading voice among Buddhists in America. And in one of his books, he responds to the question, "How does the Buddha compare with Jesus as a Savior?" Maguire answers, "Both the Buddha and Jesus Christ can be considered enlightened individuals who taught people how to lead better lives. There are, however, critical differences between them. Christianity is based on belief in a divinity, God, who was manifested on earth in the person of Jesus. Buddhism is based on acceptance of the teachings of a human being who realized that he, like all human beings, had an identity far beyond the personal self that is born and dies."

Now, there is a lot of theology packed into that statement, but suffice it to say, "Here's a guy who's not a Christian, and yet he's affirming, 'Yeah, there's some similarities here and there, but there are also profound differences.'" Now, that doesn't mean that we can't get along, that we can't be respectful, that we can't be loving, but these differences exist because in reality, all faiths make exclusive truth claims. You might want to write that down. All faiths make exclusive truth claims, not just Christianity, all faiths. Think about it. Even atheists make exclusive truth claims. Can God exist and not exist? Of course not. Someone can believe their own truth, but just believing something doesn't necessarily make it true.

Now, my purpose today isn't to debate. That would hardly be fair since I'm the only one holding the microphone, right? My purpose is to, as humbly and clearly and respectfully as I can, address the question, why would Jesus say He's not just a way, but the way? And to do that, I want to point out a few things He says in John 14, specifically in verses 1 through 9. What is so unique about Jesus? How does Jesus set Himself apart from not just every other religious figure, but every other human being who's ever lived? Well, the first thing is this. Jesus claimed heaven is where He is. Jesus says heaven is where I am.

Now, follow along with me as I read starting in verse 1. "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God. Trust also in Me. In My Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, I would have told you. I'm going there to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with Me that you also may be where I am." Okay, so heaven is where Jesus is. What's so unique about that? I mean, couldn't you just say, "Well, heaven is where grandpa is," right? What's the big deal? Well, Jesus isn't saying, "I'm going to save you a room like we're all going to live in the same dorm." Okay, when Jesus says, "I will come back and take you to be with Me that you also may be where I am," He's saying that to be in heaven is to be in His presence. He's saying He's the center. Jesus is what makes heaven what it is. In other words, there is no heaven outside of His presence.

Now, unfortunately, we have these kooky images about heaven. I mean, I think most of us picture heaven somewhat like this cartoon here on screen, right? "I'm floating on some cloud. Hey, man, got my harp and my halo." Now what, right? Can't wait for that. That's why if we're honest, we don't really want to go to heaven, okay? Not as long as things are reasonably comfortable for us here on earth, am I right? I mean, here we've got sunsets and chocolate, sandy beaches, snow-capped mountains. You know, here you can watch the Giants play on a warm afternoon, so we have a hard time imagining anything better than what we've got right here.

It's like the old joke, two guys have a lifelong argument over whether there's baseball in heaven, because heaven's supposed to be filled with all the things that make you happy, right? So they make a deal. Whoever dies first agrees to come back and tell the other one whether or not there's baseball in heaven. Well, eventually one guy dies, comes back in a vision to the other guy and says to his friend, "I have good news and I have bad news. The good news, there's baseball in heaven. The bad news, you're pitching Friday." Okay, me? Great example of our attitude about heaven, right? "The bad news, you got to go there." Now we're pretty fuzzy on this. But you want to know the most important thing, the most certain thing you can say about heaven? Heaven is where Jesus is. Heaven is life in His presence.

And again, you may not like or choose to believe the things that Jesus claims about Himself. He gives you that option. It's your prerogative. But these are His words in Scripture, His words. And if you have doubts about that and maybe you think maybe His followers just put words in His mouth and were a little fast and loose with the record, I invite you to come back next weekend as René and his wife Lori will team up to address the reliability of the Bible. But if we trust that these words are faithful to Jesus, then Jesus not only claimed heaven is where He is, Jesus also claimed He is the way to God.

Now in context, Jesus has just told His disciples that He's about to leave them. This is right before His arrest and His crucifixion. But He tells them, "You don't have to be afraid because I'm going to come back and I'm going to gather you to myself in heaven." And then He says, starting at verse 4, "You know the way to the place where I'm going." Thomas said to Him, "Lord, we don't know where You are going, so how can we know the way?" And you've got to love Thomas, okay, because this is the same disciple that when the other ones say, "Hey, Jesus has risen from the dead," he's like, "Yeah, right. Right. In fact, unless I see where the nails pierced His hands and the spear pierced His side, I won't believe it." Okay, Thomas is not one of these, "I'll just follow you blindly" kind of guys. He wants the facts.

Ever have someone tell you something and while they're talking, you know, you're politely nodding your head and you're acting like you know what they're saying, but in reality, you have no idea? You ever do that? And hopefully, like, not this morning, okay? Thomas is not that kind of guy. And so he says, "Wait a minute. Time out. We don't know where You're going, Jesus, so how in the world can we know the way?" Verse 6, "Jesus answered, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.'" And there it is, the big bombshell, right? Why does Jesus make such an exclusive statement?

I mean, couldn't He have just said, "Hey, I'm the way for you guys," you know? "I'm your truth. I'm your life." But He doesn't do that, does He? And in fact, lest we misunderstand Him when He says He's the way, the truth, the life, He goes on to add, "No one comes to the Father except through Me." I mean, why does He put so fine a point on it? It's not because He's being mean. It's because He's being arrogant or intolerant. It's because it is tied to who Jesus claims to be. Now, stick with me because this is central to everything that we're talking about.

You see, Jesus did not consider Himself to simply be a prophet. Okay, a prophet can point the way, but certainly the prophet is not the way. Jesus did not consider Himself to simply be an enlightened individual. An enlightened person can talk about how they became enlightened or what enlightened them, but they can only, again, point to their own experience. But Jesus says, "No, I'm much more than that." Jesus claimed to be the way because of His divinity. And now I'm going to ask you to put your thinking caps on because this is where we've got to talk a little bit about the Trinity, okay? One God who exists in three persons. And I know this is, you know, hard stuff, but we're talking about God after all, so it should stretch our brains just a little bit.

Jesus affirms all through the Gospels that He is God the Son who enters the world uniquely and physically at His birth in Bethlehem. This is why Jesus is called Immanuel, God with us. This is why Jesus told His followers to baptize others in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit because God is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Now, are you still with me or is your head starting to hurt? All right, hang in there because this is where it all comes together. Human beings were lost because of sin, totally separated from God. But God loves us, so it was the Father's will that the Son would reconcile sinners back to God.

So, when Jesus says, "Nobody comes to the Father except through me," He's affirming His unique mission as God the Son. He's saying, "I'm the one who came to reconcile you back to the Father." And that is why Jesus cannot say that He is simply a way to God. It's not possible for Jesus to point to anyone but Himself. So, Jesus claims to be the way because here and elsewhere, He's gonna take it even a little bit farther, He's gonna claim to be God in person. Jesus actually claimed to be God, picking up at verse 7. "If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know Him and have seen Him." Philip said, "Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us."

And again, I love the disciples because they ask all the questions that you and I would be asking and they're confused, they're anxious, and they're like, "Just cut to the chase, Jesus. You know, just show us the Father and then we're gonna be okay." And Jesus answered, "Don't you know me, Philip? Even after I have been among you such a long time, anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father?'" Now, wow, that is an amazing statement when Jesus says, "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father." In other words, Jesus claims to be the exact representation of the Father. And I would submit to you that only God can exactly represent God. Only God can do that.

In John 1, verse 18, it says, "No one has ever seen God but God the one and only who is at the Father's side has made Him known." And where it says, "God the one and only," in our English Bibles and Greek, it even puts it, I think, a little more powerfully when it says, "The only begotten God." So you could read this, "No one has seen God, not in His full glory." We can't handle that. But Jesus, the only begotten God, has made Him known. Now, have other people claimed to be God over the course of human history? Of course they have, many people. But every single one of them is still lying in their grave, except Jesus, who backed up His claim by rising from the dead, appearing physically to the very same people who saw Him crucified and sealed in a tomb.

I mean, let's face it, Jesus can make any claim He wants about Himself. He can claim to be God or anything else, but unless He rose from the dead, you'd be a fool to believe Him. Without the resurrection, we may as well pack up and go home. That's what the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15. Look at this, he says, "If Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless." Worthless. You know, not just like some good teaching, it's worthless and you are still dead in your sins. So if you're struggling with the unique and yes, exclusive claims that Jesus makes about Himself, first of all, let me remind you, all faiths make exclusive claims. That's the reality. But the claims of Jesus are uniquely backed up by His triumph over death, which validates His claims to divinity.

And you may be thinking, "Well, that's great, Mark." You know, but hasn't that, you know, we got the truth attitude caused a lot of problems. I mean, hasn't it caused so much religious imperialism where there's violence and bigotry and all the junk that's happened under the flag of Christianity? Certainly, there have been many awful moments in the history of the church carried out by people who called themselves Christians. But I would suggest to you in each and every case, it is where the gospel was failed to be lived out in truth. It was a failure to faithfully live out the gospel. And just because someone signs Jesus' name at the bottom of their check doesn't make it any less a forgery. You know what I'm saying?

G.K. Chesterton put it this way, "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting, it has been found difficult and left untried." Now, I don't know if it's quite as grim as Chesterton makes it out to be, but suffice to say, whenever Christianity is faithfully lived out, whenever it's faithfully lived out, it actually provides the solution, the antidote to toxic religion. Let me explain to you what I'm talking about. Flip over your notes to page two if you haven't already. What's so unique about Christianity? We talked about what's so unique about Jesus. And when I say Christian, I mean genuine Christianity. But Jesus addresses three categories, right? He talks about heaven, the way to get there, and who He is, claiming to be God. Heaven, salvation, God, these are all incredibly important.

And what we believe about them has a huge impact, a very practical impact on how we live. I want to show you how Christianity, in Christianity, these three subjects have the unique potential to pull people together, not drive them apart. Let me show you what I mean. First, heaven. In biblical Christianity, heaven is about redemption, not escape. All the world's faiths acknowledge that, you know, life here ain't what it ought to be. There's just, there's got to be something more. So the goal, for instance, in Eastern religions is to escape the cycle of death and rebirth and bondage to karma, okay, that follows you from one life to the next. Heaven isn't so much a place, it's an escape from bodily existence and the illusion that you are a distinct individual.

But in biblical Christianity, there's a God who is set on redeeming this very creation, okay. Last week, Paul showed you a little bit from Revelation 21. I want to return to that starting at verse 1. "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Now the dwelling of God is with men, and He will live with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God.'" Notice who we are with. "And He who sits on the throne said, 'Behold, I am making all things new.'" Now let me ask you, who is sitting on the throne? It's Christ. And he says, "Behold, I am making all things new." All things. Birds. Puppies. Not so sure about cats. Okay, yes, cat-tos, but the redeemed cats. Trees, mountains, lakes, you and me. Not like these beaten down sin corrupted versions because the new you, the new everything will be perfect and it's something we can't even imagine because everything we've ever seen, ever experienced has been devastated by sin. We can't even picture perfection, but God is going to redeem His creation. He is making all things new.

Now how does that affect the way we live? What kind of people should that make us? Shouldn't it motivate us to be redemptive people? Set on redeeming now what Jesus will fully redeem then? This means we look at everything, especially people with a redemptive eye where no one is disposable, but with this goal, how can I be about redeeming relationships, redeeming situations? How can I bring love and peace and justice and healing? How can we be redemptive like our God is? Second thing unique to Christianity is that salvation is received, not earned. Now to be accurate, there are themes of grace in other religions, but every other belief system that I'm aware of, grace at best gets you in the door or on the path and then it's left squarely up to you to finish it off.

But in biblical Christianity, it's emphatic. It is all by God's grace, like here in Ephesians 2, 8, and 9, "For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast." No one can boast under grace because if you really get grace, if you really get grace, it completely humbles you. Why? Because you realize, I'm actually not a great person. I need God's grace. I need God's mercy. In fact, I would say there are millions of people in other faiths that are more devoted than me, more upright than me, more disciplined, more committed. They are simply better people than I am. And if God is grading on a curve, I am in serious trouble, and I imagine a few of you are too. That's why I cling to the gospel of grace because I'm convinced that being good is never good enough.

See here's the problem with any faith system that's based on your performance. It sets you up to look down your nose at people who aren't trying as hard as you are. Think about this. If I'm working hard, if I'm keeping the rules and following the rituals, it predisposes me to look at others and think, "How come they're not doing those things?" Slackers? Sinners? Again, this is so practical because if it's all about performance, and I'm performing, right, then I look over at the underachievers and I become judgmental. And I put myself on a slippery slope that leads to indifference and eventually leads to hate and even violence against those who don't believe what I believe or live the way that I live.

Listen, we've been talking about differing truth claims. About intolerance, hate, bigotry, those aren't truth problems. Those are heart problems. Those are heart problems. So whether people call themselves Christians or anything else where you see judgmental spirits, you see indifference or worse, it's an instance where there is a lack of grace penetrating their hearts. But because salvation is received, not earned, we're motivated to extend the very same grace that we've received to others. Take for instance the Homeless Connect Project that Paul and Val were talking about. I love the headline that was in Wednesday's Sentinel. I don't know if you saw this, but the editorial board of the Sentinel proclaimed this. They said, "Mercy Triumph's Judgment at Homeless Connect Project." Did anybody see this? I thought this was awesome. This is the gospel in a nutshell right here, mercy triumph's judgment.

Karen Watkins, one of our staff members, coordinated the TLC volunteers and was also on the planning team for this amazing project. She shared some stats and some emails with me. I wish I could read them all, but here's just a couple excerpts. This is from a man who's been at TLC for many years. He spent his day fixing bicycles that many homeless people rely on as their sole means of transportation. And he writes, "All the homeless people we help were unbelievably thankful. It brought me so much joy to witness this and to be of service to this group of people in our community. This outreach has really affected the way I look at the homeless population because grace changes your perspective of others." Here's one from a woman I grew up with here at church. She was a rascal like me. I mean, she was a rebel. She was. I became a pastor. She became a police officer, so go figure. Church is doing something right.

She writes this, "I'm a local retired peace officer and have dealt with many of these same folks on and off during my years in law enforcement. I hope none of them would recognize me and feel awkward. I was just there to help in any way I could." Well, it turns out she gets paired up with this man and he starts telling her about the problems he's had, his addictions to drugs. And she says, "We spoke about God's grace, His ability to forgive us for past mistakes and how good life can be with God in it." And this conversation leads to a point where she asked, this man asked her to pray for him. And she says, "I started to, but broke down. Here was my Lord leading me to this man who had essentially been on opposite sides of the fence for me when I was employed in law enforcement. But sitting next to me now was a man who wanted to be patient with others, who wanted to seek treatment to stop the dysfunction and bad relationships that plagued his extended family for generations, who wanted to be a good husband to his wife and father to his children. For those things, I prayed for this man who God paired me up with today." That's God's redemptive grace in action.

And for the 260 of you who volunteered on Tuesday, for all of you who donated supplies, thank you, God bless you, for demonstrating that mercy triumphs judgment. Amen? Amen. Now, let me ask you something, and I hope this doesn't come across the wrong way. But why is it that when there's a community need or some disaster around the globe, the vast majority of non-governmental aid comes from Christian churches? Despite all our failures, it's Christians that show up in numbers and with donations that are uniquely generous. And I'm not banging the drum here, it's just a simple fact. I believe it's because of this third thing that's unique to Christianity. It's because we believe that God gave himself, not just a spiritual path. God so loved the world that he what? He gave. He gave his only begotten son.

You want to see the heart of God? The clearest picture of God you will ever see is Jesus dying on a cross for people who didn't even care. I mean, God-loving people who did not love him back, that is God revealed. That is ultimate reality. First John 4, 9 and 10 says, "This is how God showed his love among us. He sent his one and only son into the world that we might live through him. This is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." God gave himself when we didn't even want him. And again, if you truly get this, if it just sinks into your soul, it will leave you anything but arrogant or intolerant or bigoted. Instead it will make you a lover. You won't be able to help yourself.

And hey, you know what? Tolerance is good. I'm all for it. But tolerance doesn't go far enough because I can tolerate people and still be totally indifferent to them. I can tolerate people and still not care about them. In fact, hey, I tolerate people all the time by simply tuning them out. Jesus didn't say tolerate your neighbor. Jesus said love your neighbor. He didn't say tolerate your enemies. He commanded us to love our enemies. That's what I'm saying, that when the gospel is lived out, it is the cure to the ugly things that happen under the banner of religion. Because look, when it comes to religion, we're talking about people's deepest convictions about life and meaning, aren't we? That's why we should always speak with humility and respect and grace.

And if it seems that Jesus comes on too strong in this passage, it's because He knows these are issues of supreme importance. Because the bottom line, when it comes to faith, it's personal, not just theoretical. It's personal. And that's why Jesus just keeps coming at it, keeps knocking, keeps pursuing, because the most important thing about you is what you believe, who you personally trust. Matthew's gospel tells us that one day Jesus asked His disciples, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?" They replied, "Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." Not a whole lot has changed. People pretty much say the same things today.

But then He turns to His disciples and He says, "But what about you? Who do you say I am?" And I leave you with this question because it is the most important question you can ever answer. Jesus isn't content to be an option. Jesus wants to be your option. And I know, it's uncomfortable, what are the main objections to Jesus are the exclusive, the very strong statements that He makes about Himself. And we want to say, "Well, Jesus, what about those people who have never heard of you?" We're going to be discussing that this Wednesday night. Dinner starts at 5.15, our program at 6.30. I hope you'll join us right over in building 700. I imagine René will also be touching on the subject in two weeks.

But for now, I don't think God is at a loss here. I think He's actually thought about this well before we ever did. He may not give us all the answers or the ones He gives us we may not like. But at the end of the day, I trust that God is both loving and just because that's what we see in Jesus. One thing's for sure. You and I, we won't be able to plead ignorance. The claims about Jesus have reached our ears. We know what He says about Himself. And in return, He asks, "Who do you say I am?" I come to you this morning, not as a person who presumes to have all the answers. I'm just an ordinary guy who in the course of my life, the Spirit of Christ came to me and said, "Mark, who do you say I am?" And by God's grace, I was able to say, "You are the Christ. You are my Lord and my God." And that has changed everything.

And so if the Spirit of Christ is asking you this morning, "Who do you say I am?" I humbly invite you to reflect deeply on your answer. Would you pray with me? Heavenly Father, my simple prayer this morning is that I will have expressed Your words clearly and faithfully, as well as expressing Your heart. I can't do that. I will utterly fail, in fact. But Lord, I pray that by Your Spirit, Your gospel, if we profess Christ as Savior and Lord, it will sink deeper into our hearts in such a way that it will overwhelm us. And we will be such gracious people, loving people, so much so that others will look at us and say, "Wow! See how they love." And for those of us, Lord, who are maybe wrestling with these issues and we struggle with questions that are very difficult ones, Lord, I pray that You just continue that conversation with that person. You continue to speak to their heart and their life, and by Your grace, Lord, and Your love, You would just draw them closer to Yourself. Thank You, Lord, for the time that You've granted us today. Thank You for the incredible grace that You have given us in Jesus Christ. It's in His name I pray. Amen.